City paramedic Josie Dimon, who was fired in the wake of Snowmageddon 2010 after it was revealed she refused aid to a dying man and expected the man to walk to her to receive aid instead of her walking to him, was reinstated to her job and awarded back-pay by an “arbitrator.”

In this case “arbitrator” clearly means “batshit crazy person who is neither neutral nor sane. Couldn’t be further from Switzerland if he or she was on Alderaan.”

Seriously, let’s think about this. Really. Think about this.

A paramedic refuses aid. Says, “He ain’t fucking comin’ down, and I ain’t waitin’ all day for him. I mean, what the fuck, this ain’t no cab service. Is he on his way? Because we are not going to wait all day for him.”

And she leaves because the sick man won’t walk to her in the snow. The man dies.

THAT person has been awarded her job back and all her money save for a three-day suspension that the “batshit crazy person who is neither neutral nor sane” has determined was “warranted.”

Excuse me while I decide whether I want to fall down laughing or sobbing.

Paramedic refuses aid. Paramedic. Refuses aid.

Ms. Dimon not only didn’t perform her job, she did the OPPOSITE of her job. She walked away from a man that needed help and she did it all eff this and eff that and this ain’t no cab service and eff you. Man dies. Three-day suspension is all she’s getting because her union has her back.

Oh, to have that kind of job security — the kind of job security that some unions have managed to create. The kind that allows a person to say to themselves, “Not only do I not have to do my job very well, but I can suck so bad at my job that a man can die and I will be handsomely rewarded with reinstatement and back-pay.”

No job outside of a union has this kind of security. If you’re an IT person and you go to accounting to fix a computer and you get there and you decide to infect it with a virus, which is the OPPOSITE of the job you’re supposed to be doing, you would be fired and there is no way on God’s blue and green earth outside of dirty pictures of your boss that you’re getting your job back.

The laws of the universe should operate thusly: If you say “fuck this” and refuse to do your job and a man dies, you shall no longer have your job. Ever.

But the laws of some unions operate thusly: You can pretty much stab your boss in the throat with scissors and as God as my witness, you will get your job back with back-pay and a public apology and city-paid therapy to deal with your anger issues.

I’m exaggerating, but a man died. DIED. And the paramedic is back on the job. And my brain is thinking about exploding.

The unions are here to protect their members, but who is going to protect us from what some of the unions have become? They’re not making themselves stronger by being the bullies they are; they are actually weakening themselves and other unions because enough of this type of behavior is what is going to make citizens and politicians become fed up enough to say, “We have had it with you.”

This type of precedent is going to create dangerous unaccountability that will make union members even more complacent that nothing they do short of murdering their boss in cold blood will ever warrant the PERMANENT loss of a job. Every threat of “You’ll be fired,” will be met with “LOL. I’d like to see you try, asswipe.” They might get to take a year off, but no worries, they’ll be reinstated and swimming in back-pay before you can say, “This ain’t no fucking cab service.”